M&Ms

Late last year Mars announced some new products coming including Mega M&Ms.

At first I thought these were just the return of the Mega M&Ms circa 2005, but instead Mars has instead imported the specs for their Galaxy Minstrels and Americanized them with bright colors.

They’re sold in familiar packaging, the large laydown bags and the individual serving size. I lucked into a sale at CVS and got two bags for $5, which I think is a fair price for fair quality chocolate.

I scrounged up all the M&Ms I had, and you can see them here from small to large, from left to right: Milk Chocolate Mini, Milk Chocolate Classic, Birthday Cake, and Milk Chocolate Mega. The individual Megas are about .75 inches across. (About the same diameter as an American nickel.) What I also noticed is that they’re extremely similar to the Mars Galaxy Minstrels. I’ve been trying to find a package of those but have had no luck. However, I’ll be in London next month and will try to pick up a package for later comparison.

The original Mega M&Ms were fat, more rounded. They’re basically the same as the current special flavor M&Ms, such as the Birthday Cake or Coconut. I’m a little unclear why they even used the same name, when it’s been only about 8 years since they were last on the shelves.

The Mega M&Ms boast three times the chocolate of a regular M&M. The Mega M&Ms weigh about 2.73 grams each while a regular M&M is about .85 grams. The color assortment is identical to the 21st century Milk Chocolate M&Ms: red, green, yellow, brown, orange and blue.

The flatness makes them easy to pick up and bite. The shell has a very satisfying crunch and there’s a large density of chocolate at the center that’s easy to distinguish. The chocolate itself isn’t extraordinary. It’s sweet and milky, though not entirely smooth in its melt. I found it a bit chalky overall, a bit on the sweet side. That said, they were wonderfully munchable and I did find myself reaching for them while they sat on my desk. I’d like to say that M&Ms would be better with better chocolate, but they tried that with Premium M&Ms and it didn’t spark with the public. Candy companies make the candy we buy. I can wish all I want, but I’m probably not M&Ms ultimate target market.

UPDATE: One of the first things I picked up when I went to London earlier this month was a package of Mars Galaxy Minstrels.

Since they’re also made by Mars, it was a natural item to compare to the new Milk Chocolate Mega M&Ms.

Unlike M&Ms, Minstrels come in only one color, dark brown.

It’s pretty easy to see why I was interested in comparing them, they’re extremely similar in size and shape.

What I did notice, though, is that the brown is much darker and more consistent. The M&Ms version is a little less deep.

In essence, the Brown Mega M&Ms and Galaxy Minstrels look the same, but the similarities end with the shell. The chocolate inside of the Minstrels is smooth, creamy, slightly malty and quite good. There’s a definite European flavor to it, a sort of dairy note that American chocolate rarely has. The M&Ms have a grainy, fudgy quality that is still absolutely tasty, but has more of a candy quality than a chocolate one.

Of the two, I was much more interested in eating the Galaxy Minstrels, and ended up eating my small bag before finishing the handful of Mega M&Ms I saved for this purpose.

Birthday Cake Milk Chocolate M&Ms are out on shelves even though Mars announced that they would be released in May 2014. The new cake flavor comes right on the heels of the Walmart-exclusive Red Velvet M&Ms that also came out this year.

The description is rather vague: Delicious milk chocolate infused with birthday cake flavor creates an exciting new treat worth celebrating. Part of my confusion comes from an actual non-standardization of birthday cake as a singular flavor. Is it yellow cake with vanilla icing? Is it devil’s food with chocolate frosting? Is it an ice cream cake with candle wax? I’m going to go with chocolate cake and white (vanilla) icing, since that’s what the red M is holding on the package.

It’s unclear if this is a new permanent addition to the M&Ms varieties, which currently include: Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Dark Chocolate, Dark Peanut, Peanut Butter, Almond, Dark Mint, Raspberry, and Pretzel plus other seasonal varieties. They currently come in two package sizes, the stand up bag holding 8 ounces shown here and the single serve version.

The candy coated chocolates are quite big and very bright in primary red, yellow and blue. I noticed that they had the same cracking and dusting problem I experienced with my Red Velvet M&Ms earlier this year. I don’t know if it’s because they’re bigger or that the specialty versions just get treated more roughly than regular versions. I polished them individually for their photo shoot. (Really.)

They do smell sweeter, with a little more of a vanilla note than regular M&Ms. They’re not that different from regular Milk Chocolate M&Ms, except that they’re bigger. They’re not that good though, the novelty of the flavor wears off after about five of them. They just seemed sweeter ... the chocolate certainly isn’t great. I’ve noticed that the quality of the chocolate is one item that Mars has not been focusing on over the years, instead it’s been the added flavors, colors or special printing you can get on the shell.

I did try them compared to the Red Velvet M&Ms, since they’re both based on cakes. What I noticed is that the Red Velvet tasted more like buttered popcorn but also had a bit more of a tangy note. The Birthday Cake, on the other hand, has an Angel Food Cake note of baked sugar and vanilla.

I’ll stick to the Almond M&Ms, just in case anyone was wondering which M&Ms to have at my birthday party.

Every once in a while candies get a revamp, so I like to revisit them. Here are a few that caught my eye.

Pretzel M&Ms were introduced in 2010 (original review) and have done well enough for Mars that they have continued as part of their regular repertoire, even getting seasonal color varieties for the holidays. I noticed a new version on shelves that advertised “now more pretzel taste.” Since I was able to find the previous version, I thought I’d taste them side-by-side. They have similar “best before” dates.

They look identical. The originals are on the left and the new version are on the right. Same colors, same shape, same size.

It is striking how much better the new ones are. The new ones are crunchier, taste lighter and airier yet have more of that malty, pretzel toasted coating. There was no difference I could see in the ingredients or in the new nutrition panel. They’re still a pretty low calorie candy treat, at only 150 calories per package, they’re pretty satisfying without being too fatty. (Of course the portion is only 1.14 ounces, but there’s a lot going on with the textures.)

The original rating stands at 7 out of 10. They’re not perfect and I still don’t think I’ve bought them since the first introduction (though I eat them when given a sample package, which happens once or twice a year). I still go for the Almond M&Ms when given the chance.

Hershey’s Rally Bar is a strange sort of candy bar in that it appears and disappears on store shelves with little notice. It’s a Hershey’s candy bar, first test marketed in the late 1960s, it was in wide distribution by 1970 across the country. The advertising theme was: Reach Me a Rally Bar, the Milk Chocolate Covered Nut Roll for the Man-Sized Appetite as well as the more gender-neutral The Crowded Candy Bar. This was one of the Hershey Corporation’s earliest attempts at advertising, before this they stood with the founder’s position that a quality product would sell itself. More about the Rally Bar on Collecting Candy.

The candy bar has no real package identity to adhere to in this reissue. This is what it looked like back in 2008 and this is what it looked like in 2004. The new one doesn’t even mention the name Hershey on the front. I picked it up at Walgreen’s as an exclusive item.

Though it was probably a chocolate candy bar when it was introduced, by the 2004 wrapper it was evident that this was a mockolate item. (Here’s my original review.)

This is smaller than the 2.2 ounce bar I tried back in 2008. This is 1.66 ounces (which is actually a good size for me). It smells like peanuts. The fudgy center is like a nougat, it’s soft and chewy with little flavor of its own. The peanuts are Payday-like, they’re crunchy, though not quite as salty. The chocolatey coating actually has a hint of salt, keeping it from being sickly sweet. Overall, it’s an okay bar but I don’t see it as that different from a Baby Ruth.

I stand by my previous rating of 6 out of 10.

There was a time when there were oodles of limited edition candies - not a month went by in the late Aughts that the major candy companies didn’t present a flavor twist on one of their tried and true candies. Snickers alone went through many iterations including: Shrek (green nougat), Indiana Jones (spiced nougat), Charged (caffeinated), 3X (chocolate nougat, chocolate caramel), Fudge (chocolate fudge instead of nougat), Xtreme (no nougat) and Nut n Butter Crunch (peanut buttery nougat).

The Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road changed up a few items in the standard Snickers Bar. First, they replaced the milk chocolate coating with dark chocolate. I approve. Second, they replaced the peanuts with almonds. I find this to be a good substitution. Third, they changed the lightly peanut butter nougat with a smoother marshmallow nougat. Definitively goes with the other two items. The structure is the same - nutty nougat on the bottom, caramel on the top and covered in chocolate.

I gave these an 8 out of 10 rating last time (full review) and I fully endorse them again this time. The nougat is smoother than the 3 Musketeers style and the crunch of the almonds is great. It’s more of a variation on the classic Mars Bar, but I won’t quibble with Mars if they want to bring this back. (In fact, I prefer it to the standard Snickers Almond, which replaced the Mars bar).

M&Ms Milk Chocolate Red Velvet are a Valentine’s limited edition available only at Walmart this year. (I bought mine on eBay.)

Red Velvet cake is made with buttermilk and vinegar plus some cocoa. It’s not a rich chocolate cake, just a lightly chocolate cake with a tangy note to it. The fact that it’s red is really inconsequential to the flavor. The color can be created naturally or using artificial food coloring. The cake is usually frosted with a cream cheese icing or browned butter icing.

I’m not much of a cake fan in the first place and Red Velvet is so low on my list that I’d probably prefer not to eat anything at all. Just to be really diligent about this, I went to Sprinkles, a cupcake bakery, and picked up a Red Velvet Cupcake to remind myself what the heck this is supposed to taste like. The Sprinkles website says that they’ve added extra cocoa to theirs and chose a cream cheese frosting.

The cake is moist and bouncy with a good crumb. The cream cheese frosting is what really prevails here. It’s wonderfully smooth and fresh, the only hint of sugary grain is in the crust, but the rest has a pleasant tangy note to the milky sweetness. The cake itself has a sort of corn meal flavor to it, it’s slightly floral, not terribly sweet and overall ... just nice. Not chocolatey, a little on the vanilla side. But nothing I’d get really excited about.

Now that I had something to compare it to, I figured I was prepared to complete my review.

The pieces come in three colors: maroon, red and white. They’re the larger, chunky M&Ms, which are inconsistent sizes. Some are the size of regular M&Ms, but most are super-sized.

The centers are milk chocolate with a light tangy note to them. They’re not more chocolatey, and as you can see from the ingredients above, they didn’t alter their milk chocolate recipe to include buttermilk. They seem like they have more of a vanilla note, like poundcake.

If someone just gave these to me without any clue about the special flavoring, I wouldn’t have picked Red Velvet. At this point I’m curious about how different this will taste from the upcoming Birthday Cake M&Ms. (I’ll set some aside for comparison when those come out in May 2014.) I think it’s a nice idea for Valentine’s Day, a little less run-of-the-mill, but if Russell Stover has had a Red Velvet seasonal piece on store shelves for two seasons, perhaps they’re not really on trend, just slightly behind it.

Red Velvet M&Ms contain milk and soy and may contain traces of peanuts, almond and wheat (in addition to listed artificial colors and unknown artificial flavors). Though Mars has a plan for certified sourcing of their cacao, M&Ms have not yet been added to that list.

The hot flavor trend this season is gingerbread. Well, not as hot as pumpkin spice, which spans Halloween and Christmas holidays. There’s little difference between the spices in pumpkin pie and gingerbread, though the proportions of the actual spices are often different and gingerbread has a background of molasses or brown sugar.

The M&Ms Milk Chocolate Gingerbread are sold only at Walmart this season, though their companion Twix Gingerbread are sold at most stores stocking seasonal bagged candy.

The design on the front of the package looks like most of the other holiday M&Ms. In this instance the Red M&M is just holding a plate with a gingerbread cookie and pointing at it. Kind of lazy.

The Gingerbread M&Ms are a milk chocolate base with some spices added in. They come in three colors, red, green and brown. Not terribly exciting. The milk chocolate is the normal sweet stuff, creamy but on the fudgy and sugary side. The added spices give it a warm flavor but nothing distinct. Maybe there’s ginger, maybe some cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. They add a light chalky note to the texture but I didn’t specifically get any ginger or black pepper in there.

What would have been extraordinary would have been a real piece of gingerbread, in the format of the Pretzel M&Ms. Or Sugar Cookie, or Snickerdoodle. There are so many exciting seasonal variations on the cookie center that could be accomplished. Even just the Pretzel M&M with this flavored chocolate on the outside would have propelled this to another level of specialness.

Intellectually, I know they’re not the same as the Pumpkin Spice M&Ms from earlier this year, but they don’t feel that different - just swap out the orange ones for red and tone down the cinnamon. No, Mars still hasn’t come out with the Egg Nog White Chocolate M&Ms I’ve been longing for. I guess they’re just not into nutmeg.

Today is the day many blogs decided to review the new M&Ms Milk Chocolate Gingerbread. The Impulsive Buy and ZOMG, Candy! would be the two that I’ve seen so far and previously Junk Food Guy and Serious Sweets. I think most of us are agreed, it’s a nice idea but not really a great M&M.

My European candy blogging friends latched onto a new product last year, the Peanut M&Ms Intense 65% Cacao which are made in France but sold in quite a few European countries. When I had the opportunity to do a candy swap with Kristian at CandyBrain.de, this was on my wishlist of items.

I have to admit that the United States has the most diverse selection of M&MS, and we’ve even had Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms in stores before. So, I was mightily surprised to see that France got 65% cacao M&Ms before we did.

The bag is pretty big, with 9 ounces in a stand up gusset package. Instead of the zip top that many snack sized packages are getting the US, this on has a little sticker on the back you can peel off to use to hold it closed after you roll the top down.

The color variety for these is interesting. I looked at the ingredient panel to check if these were all natural, and it appears that it’s nearly so. I looked up all the colorings and found the following listed:

e100 is Turmeric, a yellow-orange dye (derived from plants)
e120 is Carmine, a red dye (derived from insects)
e132 is Indigo Carmine, a blue dye (derived from plants)
e133 is Brilliant Blue, a blue dye (synthetic)
e160e is Apocarotenal, a red-orange dye (derived from plants)
e162 is Beetroot Red, a purple dye (derived from plants)
e171 is Titanium dioxide, a white pigment (derived from minerals)

Here’s the weird thing about the coloring used on the shells. I could tell what some of the colors were without looking by the taste. The red one had a banana note and the orange one had a hint of curry.

The shell is quite the same as in the US version. It’s crunchy and not too thick but doesn’t crack easily. They smell nicely of cocoa and a hint of roasted peanuts. The chocolate inside is quite dark, with an immediate bitter note and a little bit of a dry undertone. It’s creamy and a little chalky but not in a grainy way. The peanuts however, were weird. I found most of mine were over-roasted, too dark, bitter and just plain ... well, not right. Maybe they’re not American peanuts, which I admit I’m quite acclimated to.

I wanted to like these more than I did, though I had no trouble eating them all. Of course the fact that they’re not available in the United States solves any issues I’d have if I did love them a little too much. Now ... maybe if they started putting Marcona almonds or Hazelnuts in there along with the dark chocolate ... then we might have something that would drive me to order from eBay regularly. I would be even better if the M&Ms World Stores would stock these international versions.

I usually wait until a trade show rolls around to introduce new candy product notes, but I was really excited about the new products set to be presented at the The Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing show (NACS) in Atlanta from 12-15 October by Mars. So, I decided to roll out the announcement for these a little early. Sadly, nothing comes out this year, the earliest new release is January:

Name: Mega M&Ms Milk Chocolate & Peanut
Brand: Mars
Description: Featuring 3x the chocolate of regular M&Ms. The peanut variety uses larger peanuts in the center. Available in single serve bags and 11 ounce packages.
Introduction Date: May 2014
Notes: This is at least the third time Mega M&Ms have been introduced, if you include the Shrek version. The limited edition and flavored varieties, such as Coconut and Pumpkin Spice are already using this larger format, so it seems like Mars already has the equipment in place for this new/rebooted line.

Name: Dove Promises Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel
Brand: Dove
Description: offers a decadent blend of creamy caramel mixed with savory sea salt and wrapped in silky smooth dark chocolate. Will retail for $3.49 for a 8.5 ounce bag.
Introduction Date: January 2014
Notes: These have been a Target exclusive for over a year now, and I can attest that they are quite good. With their upcoming sustainable sourcing certification, these might just be the best mass-produced dark chocolate caramel in the big box stores.

Name: Twix Bites
Brand: Mars
Description: Unwrapped, bite-sized cubes that are a miniature version of the iconic bar brand, ideal for consumers looking for the full taste experience of a TWIX Bar in a smaller portion. Available in 2.83 ounce king size and stand up, resealable pouches.
Introduction Date: April 2014
Notes: Twix is strange for me. Conceptually, I should love it, but I never like them when I try them, they’re not ideal for the ratios I prefer. So this version, which I suspect will have more chocolate, might hit that perfectly. I’m quite excited about this, especially if they decide to make the Triple Chocolate or Java version.

Name: Milky Way Simply Caramel Bites
Brand: Mars
Description: Gives consumers more of what they love in the MILKY WAY Simply Caramel Bar – rich, creamy caramel coated in irresistible MILKY WAY chocolate – in sharable bite-size pieces. Available in 2.83 ounce king size and stand up, resealable pouches.
Introduction Date: January 2014
Notes: I’d be curious to try these head to head with the Rolo Minis, as they’re a similar product. (Rolo are molded, Milky Way Caramel are enrobed.) The Milky Way Simply Caramel has become far more popular than I would have thought, and I think the brand is ripe now for its own new versions, such as new flavors.

Name: 3 Musketeers Bites
Brand: Mars
Description: Offers the same taste experience as the full-size bar—light and fluffy nougat covered in delicious chocolate – in unwrapped, bite-sized cubes. Available in 2.83 ounce king size and stand up, resealable pouches.
Introduction Date: January 2014
Notes: I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Milky Way Bites, as they seemed to have more malt flavor and a fresher overall taste. So, now I’m looking forward to the 3 Musketeers, which is a brand that has slipped away from me as something I might eat. These sound like they would be great with those flavor extensions they do for the different holidays (though I wonder how you’d be able to tell if they did mixes).

Name: Snickers Rockin Nut Road
Brand: Mars
Description: Packed with marshmallow flavored nougat covered with crunchy almonds and smothered in dark chocolate.
Introduction Date: January 2014
Notes: This bar also came out back in 2008 (original review) during a time when Snickers was trying out a lot of different limited editions. I liked this one the best, as it seemed less sweet and the marshmallow-cream style nougat was smoother. I’m looking forward to this return.

As usual, the candy shelves are stacking up with Halloween favorites and a few new novelty items.

The Pumpkin Spice M&Ms are a Target exclusive this year (just as the Candy Corn M&Ms were also exclusive their first year at WalMart). The package is cute and was easy to spot at the store. It features the orange M&M character looking like a pumpkin.

The flavor is not pumpkin pie itself, but the spices used to turn pumpkin custard into a seasonal dessert. Traditional pumpkin spices are a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice, and/or mace. The ingredients for these M&Ms are vague, just listing “artificial and natural flavorings” at the end of the list.

The pieces are, for the most part, the mega size. They’re larger than a standard M&M and come in three colors in the package: dark brown, orange and green.

The flavor is overwhelmingly cinnamon. Though they smell like chocolate, they taste like chocolate milk sipped in a room with too many Christmas-scented candles. The candy shell is crispy and the milk chocolate center is, well, a bit fudgy and grainy. I think I prefer the size of the regular M&Ms, since the chocolate is merely passable. In this format the amount of sugar easily overwhelms the chocolate.

I didn’t actually notice that much of a difference from the previous limited edition Cinnamon M&Ms from two years ago. Maybe a little more note of clove. I would have preferred more of the nutmeg and ginger spices than the Tic Tac notes of cinnamon candies.

Pumpkin Spice seems to be a pretty hot flavor these days (though the Hershey’s Kisses version has been around since 2008), a lot of seasonal candies are being released (see list below of previous reviews). If you like Spiced Chai or cinnamon in general, it’s a great time to pick up this twist on old candy favorites. If not, wait a few months and the Candy Cane and Egg Nog versions will emerge.

Finally, with all the crazy flavors of M&Ms that have come out over the years, I’m a loss to why they’d go with something like peanut butter and jelly before coffee.

Candyology 101 - Episode 35 - Whatchamacallit
In the latest Candyology 101 podcast, Maria and I tackled a little-celebrated candy bar, the Whatchamacallit. We’re also trying out a new format, which is a little shorter, like a handful of fun size candy bars! (more)

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All content (text and photos unless otherwise credited) is copyright 2005-2017 by Cybele May

Please do not use my photos without prior permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes.